Monthly Archives: November 2011

15 Signs You Have Strong Mental Health

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How do we really know if we’re feeling our best? Here are 15 signs that you have strong mental health, according to the ancient Indian medical system called Ayurveda:

o Good memory
o Taking the right food at the right time
o Awareness of one’s responsibilities
o Awareness of the self and beyond self
o Maintaining cleanliness and hygiene
o Doing things with enthusiasm
o Cleverness and discrimination
o Being brave
o Perseverance
o Maintaining cheerfulness irrespective of the situation
o Fearlessness in facing situations
o Sharp intellectual functioning
o Self-sufficiency
o Following a good value system
o Ability to proceed steadfastly against all odds.

Source: Ayurveda Healing the Mind

 

A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Pasta

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Like most kids, my kids come home so hungry from school that they’ll eat almost anything. So, I take advantage and feed them a large, healthy meal. The problem is that, with their busy schedules, we typically have very little time to prepare the meal, sit down and eat. I prepare as much as I can prior to when they come home, but as a working mom, my time is also very limited.

Today I learned a fabulous tip I wanted to share with all of you. I cooked whole wheat pasta in the pressure cooker and within 5 minutes, it was cooked perfectly. I mixed it with organic ghee (healthy clarified butter) and heated some frozen organic vegetables and, voila, the perfect, well almost perfect, meal.

I’d LOVE to hear your tips for very easy-to-make, delicious, nutritious children’s meals.

 

 

Time to Lose Those Extra Pounds for Good!

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I know many over-weight people who are starving because they are not consuming the right foods.

They go on yo-yo diets, but these diets are not satisfying or satiating because they involve deprivation, which is NOT sustainable.

How do we lose weight and keep it off without feeling deprived or starved? By implementing the 90/10 rule.

Here’s how it works: 90% of the time, we eat whole foods and the remaining 10%, we eat whatever we want.

This means that we can indulge (i.e., over-eat) during Thanksgiving, Christmas and/or whatever holiday we celebrate because they fall within the 10%.

The very important part of this rule is to make certain that 60% of that 90% is alkaline foods (i.e., veggies) because these types of foods are what satiate us, keep us healthy and reduce our cravings for “comfort,” empty calorie foods.

We have moved away from eating veggies for two primary reasons:

1. The food companies do not make money by selling vegetables. They make money by selling processed foods, which is what they push on us through sophisticated marketing schemes.

2. We are so busy and stressed that it is very difficult to take the time to consume even the minimal amount of 9 servings per day.

That’s why fresh, organic juice is soooo important to drink. Just 16 oz gives us approximately 2 times the minimum daily requirement of fruits and veggies. 

What are you waiting for to feel your best?

Getting a Headache when You Start to Juice Cleanse?

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We start our Reboot thinking that we’re going to feel amazing right away, but just the opposite happens. We experience muscle pains, headaches, difficulty sleeping, irritability, diarrhea and/or constipation.

Why is this happening? Because the body is detoxifying more quickly than your body has time to release the toxins.

Many people stop when they feel these symptoms, but in most cases, they should continue because these symptoms will dissipate and they will start feeling the very positive effects of cleansing very soon, including smoother skin and hair, energetic, weight loss, balanced, rejuvenated and so much more.

If you experience one of these symptoms, drink WATER. You should be drinking at least half of your body weight in ounces of pure water. This means water without anything added to it and ideally it should be at room temperature to slightly warm.

It also helps to do more gentle exercise to improve blood circulation and get out in the sun. 

Is too much exercise making you sick?

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Many years ago I attended a running camp led by Bill Rodgers. Some of the top runners world-wide were also present. What amazed me was that when we sat on the floor to stretch with our legs in front of us, none of us could sit upright and barely any of us could touch our knees.  

Part of this was because hardly any of us stretched regularly. Another reason is because we built up so much lactic acid that we become inflexible. This also can lead to injuries, crankiness, burn out and even illness (as I experienced).

I teach my 11-year-old daughter, Julia, who is a competitive soccer player, of the need to eat alkaline foods to neutralize the acidity so that she can perform optimally and prevent injury. A week ago before a soccer match, she was feeling particularly tired. I handed her a bottle of our Green Lemonade. After the first sip, her eyes lit up and she said, “Boy Mom, You can feel the difference right away.”

We have become so disconnected to what nutrients do for us and it’s not entirely our fault. After all, look at the typical cereal box. It is fortified with a number of vitamins and nutrients, but they’re really hardly helping us. In fact, we still get sick after eating these fortified foods. The reason is that the nutrients are hardly bio-available in the human body.

When I became sick in my mid-30s from over doing it, I was fortunate to find a nutritionist who was well ahead of her time who advised me that at least 60% of my diet should be alkaline. I started drinking fresh organic juices twice a day and within a week, I recovered.  I felt energetic and balanced. My flexibility improved dramatically and I was able to sleep better throughout the night. The result was so profound that I built a company around fresh organic JOOS.

Do you know among the best time to drink fresh organic juices? After hot yoga, a tennis match or a long run to neutralize the lactic acid we built up from intense exercise.
What are you waiting for to feel your best!

10 Tips to Living a Healthier Life

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When you think about it, we don’t binge eat when we’re happy. When we’re happy, we’re also not frazzled, depleted or distracted. Instead, we’re feeling balanced, in control, energetic and focused.

Often, in our very busy lives, it’s difficult to feel happy because we’re so rushed and stressed. Andrew Weil, in his new book, Spontaneous Happiness, lists 10 Ways to Live a Healthier Life, including:

1. Exercise:
2. Follow an Anti-Inflammatory Diet
3. Take Fish Oil and Vitamin D
4. Take Depression-Specific Herbs
5. Do Breathing Exercises
6. Try Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
7. Laugh
8. Limit Media Exposure
9. Forgive
10. Practice Gratitude

I understand that this is a tall order, but start small and build up and make it routine, just like many people drinking coffee in the morning. For example, have fish oil and Vitamin D (during the winter) supplements readily available each morning,

For more information, visit his website:
www.SpontaneousHappiness.com

Are we failing to teach our children the greatest lesson of all?

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My daughter, Fia, wanted to be the ring master in the 5th Grade school circus since she was in Kindergarten. Finally reaching 5th Grade, she spent 2 full days carefully writing an essay to the teacher stating why she felt she would be an entertaining ring master.

A week after she submitted the essay, she stormed home after school and went directly to her room. I followed her up where I found her on the floor crying. I sat down beside her and she said, “The teacher said that all the essays were good so she put them into a hat and chose 3 people. It’s so not fair. Jennifer didn’t even write her essay, Lauren did it for her (names changed).”

I would have thought this essay contest to become the ring master would have been a healthy competition and present a great opportunity to teach the children that if they wrote the best essay, they would win. Yet, the school deprived them of this lesson because they are afraid that some children are unable to cope with defeat. I’ve heard at some schools, jump rope isn’t allowed because some kids jump better than others so feelings were getting hurt.

Evidently, this issue of inhibiting competition is pervasive because I hear about it often from other parents. The biggest crime is that we’re depriving our children of one of the biggest life lessons: the ability to learn how to cope.!

Studies on centenarians have found that one of the key factors that contributed to their long lives was their ability to cope. In the book, The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study, authors Dr. Howard S. Friedman and Dr. Leslie R. Martin invalidate several myths about achieving a healthy and long life. For example, they found that people do not die from working long hours at a challenging job. Just the opposite. Many who worked the hardest lived the longest. It’s not the happy-go-lucky ones who thrive; it’s the prudent and persistent with a strong ability to cope who flourish.

The inability to cope has a myriad of bad effects on our health. For example, when we don’t cope well with a situation, we do things to ourselves that hurt us because we’re unable to deal with the pain. For example, we may turn to smoking, binge eating, drugs, etc.

This is precisely why we developed the JOOS Reboot: to help us cope with the difficulties in life in a productive way. The reason is that we become more mindful of what we eat as we do the JOOS Reboot, which makes us slow down and deal better with the challenging situations in our lives. It can truly be a powerful experience!